Macam mana saya nak ke sana? Entahlah, tapi I am an alumnus of UIA. THAT place is like Hogwarts and I have survived its every secret coven and secret halls. Do you know how to get to Dr Rahman Tang's room without getting lost? I know the way. Do you know how to go to Experimental Hall 3? I know where it is. Do you know how to go to the English Lab 2? That place that is there but you can't seem to find the way? I KNOOOOOWWWWW.

Ok, drama queen aside.

As far as everybody's concerned, I have a 1960s brain - everything is about Charles Manson, JFK, Vietnam War dan Audrey Hepburn. Every technology is a "thingy". Stylus? It's a "pointy-thingy". Android Gingerbread? It's a "thingy that sounds like a George Lucas movie meets food". Blackberry Gold? It's a "BB brand-thingy". Dual-core processor? It's a thingy that I don't care.

Friday, September 16, 2011

On this day, in 2005 when I was in IIUM, I sent a manuscript to Alaf 21. It was entitled "Seorang lelaki dan Cinta Zulaikha". I didn't send the whole manuscript, just half of the story because I had once experienced being duped by another publishing company. I didn't get any reply until a year later, a man called Encik Mohd Ali rang me and told me that I was rejected. By then, that thing about Alaf has long gone from my mind.

But then he told me there's a good news. There is this new publishing house called Buku Prima and he is going to take my manuscript together with him with one condition - that I will develop the storyline. But I didn't start straight away. I was in the mid of what you call "the horrific semester". Six assignments, 5 tests and end of semester exam looming in the dark. So it took me another six months before I start rewriting the whole story - after a friend told me the story of her male cousin who (together with a bike convoy) got detained at the Malaysia-Thai border when he tried to cross so he could go fight in Afghanistan.

I sent the manuscript later in 2006. I graduated from IIUM the same year and the book was published in 2007 under an editorial-picked title "Soalnya Hati". Until now, not many people knew that it was the first book I have ever published. A lot of people think that I started with "Plain Jane" because that one totally change my rule about writing. When the book was published, Buku Prima was still a young sapling with only six books in hand. In those days, if you tell people you are writing for Buku Prima, they kinda go "Who?"

It was also part of the reason I got the job at Cinema Online - when I brought it together with me and showed it to an interviewer named Marcel who later became my boss.

Eager to finally show what I have, I started penning "Plain Jane" as soon as SH was in stores. It was originally titled "Plain Jane untuk Mr. Darcy". And THAT was published in 2008. And then I had a one year relapse due to a permanent job. I only started writing "Aku Kan Novelis" in 2009 (originally called "Novel Cinta", an inside joke for me since I kept getting that question "What books do you write?" that I thought if I just put the title "Novel Cinta", then that settles every bit of question that comes after that), after quitting my permanent job, and it was published in 2010. "Valentina Nervosa" followed suit - readers called it 'darker', which is true in one way, but I call it "playing-with-fire-with-tongue-in-cheek".

So yes, if you want to count the day from the first time I sent my manuscript, it has been seven years. If you count it from the moment SH was out fresh from the oven, then I have been a writer for five years. When I started, it was hard for me to find a place - the writing world is filled with bestselling authors in the likes of Sharifah Abu Salem and Fauziah Ashaari. At that time, at the age of 24, I was considered "a young writer". Nowadays you can find novelists as young as 17 years old! How times have changed.

(It was also the reason why any time a new novelist came into the picture introducing themselves as "the young writer", yours truly will just smile and thinks, "Yeah, for a month!")

And I have always been the "not" writer. I am not indie, not artistic, not mainstream enough and not a bestseller. Which means that I am not an award-winning, artsy, lovable writer with a load of cash in her bank. Hahaha. But I love my readers just the same.

So yeah, happy Hari Malaysia to yer, and Happy Writer Anniversary to me.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Here's what my friends seemed to think of as a "gift", that I think more suitably called a "curse". I kept talking about it because it's a nuisance. And I really have to explain myself time and time again because of it - because everytime I said something like "I remember when..." and it's a bad memory, people looked at me like I am that crazy woman who can't leave her past.

You see (again)...

I don't forget.

Sure, I don't remember facts exactly and I have no photographic memory or those kind of things. But do you know all those time when you forgot to pray, or forgot that it's already Ramadhan, or forgot birthdays? Nope, I don't. Never once in my life have I ever get that pleasure of eating in the morning because I forgot that it's Ramadhan (as you can see, if you forgot it, you are forgiven for it, as long as you stop as soon as you remembered). Never once did I skipped zohor and straight to asar not remembering that I have not prayed yet. Once, it was like 3 minutes to maghrib's call to prayer that my mind suddenly clicks, "I haven't done my asar yet." Yes, that way if I didn't pray, I have no other excuse except that I am just an asshole.

The thing about remembering stories is that it sucks when it comes to those things you wish you forget. So when people say "forgive and forget" and I say I don't forget, mostly it's not because I am keeping a string of vendetta against people. It's just I am not equipped of that pleasure of forgetting. Pretending that I have forgotten, THAT I am good at.

Mun said that the rate of my remembering things is close to creepy. But here's the thing about things I remember. I remember because it has a story.

Take the road for example. Like I said, I am so very good at remembering the past and old memories, but not so much of details. Which makes me bad at giving directions. I can go to any place three or four times and I will still have issues trying to explain it to people. But weirdly enough I always remember the ones that you should not use. I mean, once Nad and I was on the road to Mun's house. I can't remember the way but as soon as Nad turned to this one junction, I knew it was the wrong one not because I knew the place, but because three years ago, Ann made the same mistake of using that road. Tim once asked why the hell I remember the wrong road but not the right way.

Well, it's simple. The right way has no story. The wrong one has a lot. If you can go from point A to point B without missing any junctions, it is a very straightforward no nonsense drive. But once you are lost, you will have that "WTF" moments. I don't remember street names and junctions. I remember all those WTF moments which led me to remember that here is the place where WTF moment number one or WTF number five happened, so it IS the wrong road. For example, I know that Nad took the wrong turn because I saw a bridal shop on my left. Three years back, when Ann made the same turnat the bridal shop, she was half hysterical half regretting and kept saying "Koraaaang, sorrryyyyy" time and time again that we all went WTF and laughed.

So in conclusion, I remember stories. I remember things that have stories. Things with stories are what we called memories. And if things I want to forget is a part of a story, I will never be able to forget them. That explained why I remembered people's birthday without a facebook reminder, or what was on the table at a friend's wedding reception, or that the father of my old friend in primary school Salhafizah's is spelled YAACOB and not YAAKOB.